


Upper Hand

by shirogiku



Category: Being Human, Being Human (UK)
Genre: Canon-Typical Dub-Con, Cutler's Life Is Not Fair, Lord Harry, M/M, PWP, Party like it's the 1950s, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Power Imbalance, Pre-Canon, Season/Series 04, Snarky Cutler, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:53:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirogiku/pseuds/shirogiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Count to twenty, loud so I can hear you," Hal's voice betrays nothing but his utter detachment, "You may cry out or squirm, it's all the same to me. But you may not move any part of you, and for every number you skip over, I'll hit you twice."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Upper Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [non_canonical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/non_canonical/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** _Being Human_ belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC.
> 
> **A/N:** Revised 2016-07-05

* * *

 

There are two things Cutler absolutely can’t stand. One is humiliation, and the other is disappointment. And it's just his bloody luck that his maker happens to be an endless source of both, like a school with completely arbitrary rules for graduation.

 

"Did your father ever spank you?" Hal's tone is bored, almost clinical.

 

He jerks up his head in defiance. "I didn’t _have_ a father."

 

"Of course you did. Or do you mean to say it was an immaculate conception?" His maker smirks at his own joke, the prick. "Whoever raised you, did _he_ spank you?"

 

“No,” is Cutler's curt reply. The door to the office is closed, but not locked, all part of the plan to multiply his existential dread, as if the knots in his stomach could be tied any tighter.

 

"What about your further education? _Some_ of your teachers must have liked a good beating."

 

"No," he lies.

 

Hal nods to himself. "Not in your case. You always got away by pushing the blame onto others."

 

His maker isn't wrong on that account. "It's the makings of any successful lawyer." _And_ vampire, for that matter. "You could say I started early."

 

Hal laughs. It isn't a pleasant sound. “Drop your goddamn trousers down and bend over the desk."

 

His eyebrows arch. "If you just wanted to fuck-"

 

"I don't 'just want to fuck'," Hal interrupts him. "This isn't about fucking. This is about the mess you've made. Sooner or later, there always comes a time when you have to face the music and take it like a man. Are _you_ a man, Cutler?"

 

"Yes." How could such soft, pink lips cut so deep? Like a knife through the melting butter of his bravado. "And that's why I won't do it." The urge to obey _is_ physical, written in his blood, but he has to have his pride. It's the one thing that Hal hasn't taken from him. Yet. " _You_ always get away with everything."

 

For a moment, he is dizzy with his own insolence.

 

Hal smiles at him - so, _so_ patronisingly. "Better learn your lessons from your maker than from a stake." The threat isn't even implicit - it's just an aside. "Which one of us is the maker, Nick?"

 

"You are."

 

"Indeed i am, and I wasn’t planning on wasting my whole day on disciplining a naughty child.”

 

Cutler starts with the belt, his slowness being his last refuge and final act of defiance. His trousers slide down his legs, pooling around his ankles, and he takes another measure of satisfaction in messing up Hal's papers.

 

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

 

Well, it's Hal's business to phrase his orders better. He exposes himself, and somehow, despite everything that Hal has already done to him, it feels like the first time that Hal is seeing him like this, with his bare arse in the air.

 

"Count to twenty, loud so I can hear you," Hal's voice betrays nothing but his utter detachment, "You may cry out or squirm, it's all the same to me. But you may not move any part of you, and for every number you skip over, I'll hit you twice."

 

Over his shoulder, Cutler sees him unbutton his crisp white shirt - wouldn’t want to wrinkle it, Cutler supposes, and that reminds him that there would be no one to iron out the new creases for him at the end of the day.

 

Would Hal showed the subtlest sign of getting off this, Cutler could have worked with that. Or at least felt morally superior. But no, he is still the naughty child.

 

"From the look on your face, you'd think I was about to guillotine you.” He soothes his hand over Cutler’s buttock, sending a tingle through Cutler’s overwrought body. “I promise you you won’t bleed."

 

The first smack falls as fast as a blade, though, and Cutler yelps at the sharp sting, somewhere between his right thigh and the other buttock. Hal takes his sweet time deliberating on the next one - but the instant Cutler's muscles relax a fraction, he goes for the exact same spot.

 

"T-two," he stutters belatedly.

 

"No," Hal corrects him. "You haven't been keeping count properly."

 

That's true, and the third blow completely unbalances him. "O-one." Fucking hell, _why_ is Hal such a sadistic bastard?

 

"It’s a pity you haven’t done your duty to your country,” Hal comments conversationally. “The army could have taught you some discipline.” Oh yes, right before getting him killed with no further career advancement opportunities.

 

"T-three."

 

"But you think you are above such things, don't you?" Yes, he does. "Tell me." Miraculously, Cutler holds his tongue. "Are you above discipline?"

 

"Four, five, six," are his successive answers.

 

He wonders if Hal will ever _like_ him for his cleverness. He manages not to lose count until ten, Hal scattering strong-handed blows over his thighs and buttocks at random.

 

"Eleven," is when Hal decides to step up the game. He strokes the fresh bruises until his palm feels like nettles, then pulls Cutler's belt out of its buckles.

 

Ow. _Ow_.

 

"Nick, Nick," Hal chides. "How hard could it possibly be to get to twenty?"

 

"Fourteen," Cutler groans.

 

Hal runs the belt, folded in two, along the underside of Cutler's leaking cock. He has _no_ idea how that has happened, but now that it has, maybe he can use it.

 

Hal knows him better than he knows himself. But what Cutler hopes he will overlook is that submission is also a show.

 

"Fifteen." He offers himself up completely. “Please.” Another smack. " _Please._ ”

 

"Please what? Oh, Cutler, with you, I never know if you just want to get it over with or make the fun go on forever.”

 

" _Yes,_ " he forces out through gritted teeth.

 

The belt returns to his cock, tracing a vein, and Cutler’s hips buck violently. Pain and pleasure, twisted together in Hal's hands.

 

"Twenty;" he expels from himself like the release that he is being denied.

 

Hal doesn't stop, though, because Cutler hasn't been _diligent enough_.

 

"Weren't you in a hurry?" He feels like laughing and sobbing at once. "When does it end?"

 

"When do you want it to end?"

 

"When you fuck me," he admits.

 

Hal kneads his sore, quivering buttocks, eliciting more noise. The edge is where Hal keeps all of his toys. Abruptly, Hal yanks him upright and his knees give out. His maker does not help him back to his feet, watching him silently as he climbs into the chair over the back of which Hal is drumming his fingers.

 

Hal straddles his lap, grinding down hard and fast and covering Cutler's mouth with his own to feast on his moans and pleas. This is how Cutler always wants his maker, close and personal. But it doesn’t end there either - Hal gets up, pulling off Cutler's trousers and then the rest of him along. His back hits the desk, and his mind completely blanks out when Hal shoves it in, not bothering with anything beyond some spit.

 

"Oh my God," Cutler breaths out. You are worse than any of your punishments, he can't manage to add, both thrilled and terrified.

 

"Not quite," Hal whispers in his ear.

 

"Close enough," Cutler murmurs, and Hal startles, a beautiful moment of genuine confusion.

 

Never a clean victory.


End file.
